Alumni

Vanu Bose, ‘87, SM

Vanu Bose, ‘87, SM ‘94, PhD ‘99Founder, President and CEO, Vanu, Inc.Vanu Bose was an MIT child as his father, Amar, was aprofessor in the Electrical Engineering and ComputerScience Department for 45 years, as well as founder ofthe Bose Corporation in 1964. Every Sunday morning Vanuremembers coming to play badminton with his father anda group of faculty and students – an enduring early visionof what MIT was about. He also has fond memories of theMIT day camp, especially sailing on the Charles River andseeing his father’s new office in the brand new, ultramodern,Building 36.While at MIT as an undergraduate and then graduate studentstarting in 1983, Vanu recalls the unique opportunitiesthat he found there to meet and talk to so many famouscompany founders. “I remember meeting Ken Olsen ofDEC, as a grad student when I presented to the EECSVisiting Committee,” he notes. His advisor introduced himto the late Teradyne founder, Alex D’Arbeloff, who sharedhis experiences with Vanu over coffee. Vanu also metAnalog Devices Co-Founder and then CEO Ray Stata andwas an EECS graduate student with Stata’s son Raymie,now CEO of Altiscale. “I think it’s a unique part of the MITexperience that there are not only so many great foundersaround, but that they make themselves accessible,” Vanusays.Creating wireless coverage where it doesn’t existVanu Bose founded Vanu, Inc in 1998, pioneering thecommercialization of software-defined radio and the firstcompany to receive FCC certification of a software-definedradio in 2004. As CEO of Vanu, Inc., Vanu says about thedirection of his company: “We’ve had to learn the hardway to shift focus from technology to solving customerproblems. Our mission is to create solutions for placesthat don’t have good wireless coverage today.”He notes that today’s technology works well and iscost effective – where carriers build the coverage. Theequipment, however, doesn’t get built where it is not costeffective – including inside buildings, in rural areas, indeveloping areas and on ships. So Vanu, Inc. plies a varietyof solutions not just for the communication technology, butalso in the business models and power usage to make itviable to provide this coverage.72 www.eecs.mit.edu

EECS Alumni: innovative, caring and smartIn a Jan. 29, 2015 interview with Ranjani Saigal for the e-magazineLokvani, Vanu talked about the efforts his company is making tobridge these gaps in wireless coverage in the developing world,in rural areas and world-wide.Vanu noted that the most common issue in the developing worldis lack of power. “If you look at it, there are about 3 billion peoplein the world today that don’t have cellular coverage simplybecause they don’t have electricity.” Some areas, he reports,run on up to 4,000 gallons of diesel a year — expensive andenvironmentally unsound.So Vanu Inc has developed a compact base station requiringonly 50 watts (rather than the traditional 2-3 KW). The product,called Compact RAN and weighing only 12 pounds, is sealed andrequires no installation. “At $5,000 per unit, it is the cheapestoutdoor base station on the market today,” Vanu notes.Further, for areas in Africa where cell phones are used and needto be charged, this unit— the Compact RAN, in combination witha 20 meter pole specially rigged with solar panels can provideGSM cellular and Wi-Fi hotspot coverage with a cell phonecharging station at the base of the pole. “So now, you can chargeyour cellphone, you can use cellular, and you can access theInternet all from this one little kiosk in the middle of the village,”Vanu says.In the rural US, Vanu says his company has created a businessmodel and network architecture by launching a wholesalenetwork through a subsidiary company. “We don’t havesubscribers; we’re not a carrier. But any carrier can connect toour network and pays us a rate-per-minute and megabytethat’s transferred over our network,” Vanu said.In fact, worldwide, Vanu hopes to provide complete coveragein roughly five years. As for developing world impact, henotes to Ranjani Saigal for Lokvani, “I strongly believe thata good business model is needed to make a viable impactthat sustains over time.” He adds, “Of course it is alwaysnice to see the social impact that comes as a by-product.”Creating Entrepreneurship OpportunitiesVanu Bose has taken an interest in helping MIT EECS studentsgain more access to entrepreneurship opportunitiesboth through involvement with EECS faculty, serving on theboard of the Gordon-MIT Engineering Leadership Programand as a member of the MT Corporation, as well as offeringhis time as a panelist and moderator for the EECS Department’sworkshop on entrepreneurship and innovation,Start6. He notes, “Entrepreneurship is by nature a grassroots effort – often during efforts that others think are crazy.In fact,” he continues, “if you are doing something thateveryone thinks is a good idea, then it’s not innovative, it’sobvious.”Vanu suggests: “MIT has a great grass roots entrepreneurshipcommunity. The MIT Venture Mentoring Service (VMS)is a tremendous resource, as are various student groupsand clubs. But, I don’t think anyone, at any university, hasfigured out how to really create a more formal process forfostering entrepreneurship and that is the challenge.”“Entrepreneurship is by nature a grassroots effort – often during efforts thatothers think are crazy. In fact, if you aredoing something that everyone thinks isa good idea, then it’s not innovative, it’sobvious.”— Vanu BoseMIT EECS Connector — Spring 2015 73